


Visiting Hours

by Hellesgift



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Angst, Dark, Drama, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-10
Updated: 2013-05-10
Packaged: 2017-12-11 09:59:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/797028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hellesgift/pseuds/Hellesgift
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just another hospital-bedside confession story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Visiting Hours

## Visiting Hours

#### by Hellesgift

  
  
  
  


* * *

Nurse Parker's shoes had squeaked protestingly two minutes earlier as she began her rounds, but Jim had been listening to the scratch of her pen for the past half hour. He'd had plenty of warning, giving him time to drape himself over the narrow bed before the sensible white shoes appeared in his peripheral vision. 

A quiet sigh warned him before her hand rested gently on his shoulder. "Detective...Jim, wake up. It's time for you to get to work." 

He groaned as her hand squeezed his shoulder comfortingly. Wilma Parker was the kindest nurse at Cascade General, and if she was also the most predictable--well, he couldn't feel guilty about that. He could set his watch by Nurse Parker's rounds, and he'd had twenty minutes to get over any residual guilt he might have felt for taking advantage of her predictability as he tracked her routine and climbed in through the window. 

He groaned again, leaning back and grimacing softly at her. "Fell asleep?" 

"Yes. Again. Detective..." She trailed off, obviously recalling the futility of reasoning with him. "Anna said you were here for half of her shift, too. Now all of my shift..." 

"Hard day yesterday." He leaned back, watching her sympathetic wince as his back popped. 

"You shouldn't stay here all night." Turning to the bed, she began her thorough checks of the machines that kept Sandburg alive. "He's not...he...we'll call you if he wakes up." 

Carefully keeping his voice calm, Jim said quietly, " _When_ he wakes up, I need to be here." True in more ways than one, of course. If Sandburg chose to wake up during one of Jim's clandestine forays...well, it was worth the risk 

Anything would be worth the risk if Sandburg would just wake up. 

"I'm sorry, Jim. You get to work now, okay?" 

"No...yes. Yeah, I have to get to work." Even though it was interrupting her routine, he had to speak. "Nurse Parker...Wilma...thank you for your kindness to Blair." _And for your relentless clockwork sense of routine_ , he thought, but thankfully didn't say. 

"You're welcome." Resting a hand softly on Sandburg's blanketed feet, she added, "And so is your friend." 

"He'll thank you himself pretty soon." 

"I'm sure he will," she lied, nodding kindly and turning back to Sandburg's clipboard. "If the guards give you any trouble about visiting hours--" 

"They won't." Reaching for his jacket, Jim moved the head of the hospital bed. "They know me by now." They _should_ know him by now, after three or four nights each week, every weekend...he practically had his own page in their log books. And last night was only the second time that those log books and Nurse Parker's rounds had been an alibi. Every other night it was just... 

"I'll just say good morning to Sandburg." 

"All right, Detective. And I hope I _won't_ see you tomorrow morning." 

Jim smiled warmly but didn't answer, and she sighed again as she left. Tracking her footsteps, Jim waited until she was three rooms away and then leaned over the bed, tracing Sandburg's gaunt cheek in a gentle caress. When he spoke, his voice was pitched to near-Sentinel levels, but he knew Sandburg could hear him. 

"I strangled the one tonight." 

The buzzing electric pulse of the machines was his only answer. 

"I put my hands around his throat and squeezed till blood bloomed in his eyes like roses." Jim's hand traced lower to Sandburg's throat, tenderly stroking the pale skin where the horrific bruises had faded. "He tried to stop me. Tried to tell me that you wouldn't want this." 

Jim chuckled softly, keeping his voice low and leaning in to nuzzle Sandburg's ear. "He was right, of course. But he and his friends made sure that wouldn't matter, didn't they?" 

He ghosted his lips over the ravaged travesty of the reconstruction of Sandburg's skull. "I would have killed him just for speaking your name..." 

Delicate kiss to each eyelid, tasting the butterfly-wing softness of Sandburg's skin. 

"...after what they did." 

Stroking down Sandburg's arm to his left hand, Jim threaded their fingers together briefly. He still didn't dare touch Sandburg's ribs or right side, although the doctors said the bones were knitting well. Squeezing Sandburg's cool fingers gently in parting, Jim brought his hands back up to frame Sandburg's motionless face. 

"There are four more left, Chief. I need to wait a while, make sure there's no fallout, but then I'll take care of them." Leaning down the remaining distance, Jim placed a feather-light kiss on the cool lips. 

"You wouldn't want that, would you, Blair?" With a last gentle caress Jim forced himself away, keeping his grip soft, his voice even softer: "So wake up and stop me." 

* * *

End Visiting Hours by Hellesgift: Hellesgift@yahoo.com  
Author and story notes above.

  
Disclaimer: _The Sentinel_ is owned etc. by Pet Fly, Inc. These pages and the stories on them are not meant to infringe on, nor are they endorsed by, Pet Fly, Inc. and Paramount. 


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